Jared Kushner speaks on his cellphone before a meeting between President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 25, 2018. Image by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

By Aiden Pink January 29, 2018

President Trump’s nominee to serve as ambassador to Chile has numerous close business ties with the family of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.

Andrew Gellert is the president of his family’s food import company, which does business in Chile. His father George is one of Jared Kushner’s father Charles’s most trusted business partners, Bloomberg Politics reported Monday.

The Gellerts own a substantial share of 666 Fifth Avenue, the troubled Manhattan skyscraper bought in 2007 by the Kushner Companies, which since the financial crisis has been searching around the world for investors to help pay its $1.2 billion mortgage due in February 2019.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

George Gellert was one of the most important early investors in Charles Kushner’s growing real estate business empire, Bloomberg explained. And after Kushner was jailed for witness tampering, illegal campaign contributions and tax evasion in 2005, Gellert often co-signed property loans with Charles’s wife Seryl.

“We’ve done many billions of dollars of business together, and everything is always on a handshake,” Charles Kushner said of George in 2016. “He’s never read a legal document I’ve given him, and it’s the same with me.”

The Gellerts provided funds for Jared Kushner to buy the New York Observer, and also invested in a venture capital firm founded by Jared Kushner’s brother Joshua.

It’s long been accepted practice in Washington to reward campaign donors and longtime friends with ambassador positions (though every ambassador to Chile sent by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were career diplomats).

Bloomberg reports that despite Gellert’s business ties in Chile, he only speaks “basic Spanish.” The White House’s official announcement of the nominee for ambassador to the Dominican Republic, a south Florida insurer and Mar-a-Lago Club member named Robin Bernstein, bragged that she also “speaks French and basic Spanish.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected]

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount